For the musical "Hairspray", the owner of the local joke shop "...closes his shop using a Rube Goldberg device." At an early production meeting, the director stated, "I don't even know what a Rube Goldberg device is."

"Don't worry. Rob has this one covered", was the collective response.

In the show Hairspray, Tracy's father owns a joke shop. The script calls for him to "...close the shop with an elaborate Rube Goldberg device." I had been working on various Rube Goldberg components for quite some time, so it was just a matter of tailoring the mechanisms to look like they belonged in a joke shop. Here's a video of it during rehearsals.

You may have heard me sing a little something at the end. That was Pitagora Suichi. That is Japanese for Pythagoras Switch, which is the name they give to Rube Goldberg devices. It's also the name of a children's program, in which they show, and invite children to make, videos of these contraptions. And at the end of each successful run, you are treated to the seven-note strain of Pitagora Suichi!